The "impressive" Sainz effort that had Norris doubting Abu Dhabi win was McLaren's

It stank of champagne. The entrance to the McLaren pit garage, barely 20 minutes after Lando Norris had won the 2024 Formula 1 Abu Dhabi season finale. His fourth win sealed the orange team’s first constructors’ crown since 1998 and it fittingly smelled just as Norris himself had done as he’d bounced into the press conference after taking his maiden triumph back in May’s Miami Grand Prix.

So much had happened since. Both Norris and McLaren became title contenders – the former for the first time at this level, the latter for the first time in a generation. Both made mistakes, both learned and rebounded convincingly.

“Proud is my biggest thing,” Norris reflected afterwards. “Of course, I'm happy I finished the season this way, but I'm way more happy for the team.”

The nerves as McLaren had lined up 1-2 ahead of Carlos Sainz – leading the challenge for Ferrari in its tricky hopes of toppling McLaren for its first F1 title of any kind since 2008 – weren’t helped by what happened to Oscar Piastri in the other MCL38 at the start. The Australian, starting second, got turned around – as world champion Max Verstappen made it one final blow to orange bodywork this season – at Turn 1.

Norris had made the perfect launch from his hard won pole. Piastri’s was fine, but actually handily for McLaren not as good as Norris’s – and so there was no danger of a Monza lap one intra-team assault repeat. Behind, Verstappen had powered past Sainz off the line and, when running clear in third, made a late bid to get second too.

The Red Bull driver dived for the inside, but Piastri – insistent “there was no overlap into the corner” – closed the door. With Verstappen pinched on the inside kerbs and understeering, the contact came. Both were turned around.

Clash between Verstappen and Piastri meant the second McLaren was out of the lead fight, as Norris lost his tail gunner

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Although Verstappen was blamed by the stewards’ for causing the collision – the Dutchman slapped with a 10-second penalty to serve at his pitstop – in truth it was a racing incident. He was aggressively ambitious as ever, but Piastri could have given him more space and seemingly chose not to.

They fell to 14th and last respectively as the pack powered by and headed uphill for the rapid left-right swoops through Turns 2 and 3. Here, Sainz, who’d lifted to avoid the spinning Verstappen and then gratefully nipped through, was starting what would be a race-long chase of Norris.

“Oscar was super unlucky,” the Briton said of his team-mate’s misfortune. “He got taken out in Turn 1. For a minute, my heart was like, ‘Oh God, it's not looking as likely’ [that McLaren would win the constructors’]. But if I just kept my head down and kept focused, I knew I could deliver and do what I’d got to do.”

It was almost immediately a two-horse race, as George Russell was bottled up behind Pierre Gasly’s third-placed Alpine

This was to beat Sainz and seal that longed-for title without needing any other points permutations from the results of either Ferrari driver. And, thanks to Sainz having to hesitate in passing the Turn 1 drama, Norris led by 1.9s at the end of lap one of 58.

But before he could really start getting to work on extending that lead through the opening stint on the medium tyres all the frontrunners had started on, the race was neutralised by a virtual safety car activation on the second tour.

This was called because Sergio Perez’s likely final F1 race had been ended by Valtteri Bottas clipping him around at Turn 6. Bottas had been passed by Kevin Magnussen’s dive as they ran in the lower points places and the contact spun Perez to the back of the pack, before he pulled over at Turn 10 with his clutch burning out.

Once his Red Bull RB20 had been cleared, the contest returned to racing speed with Norris reaching Turn 6 again on lap three. At the end of this tour, Norris was 2.8s ahead. The gap between the friends first held, then gradually started to increase.

Gasly's presence in third prevented Russell from joining the lead fight as Norris began cat-and-mouse race with Sainz

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But it was almost immediately a two-horse race, as George Russell was bottled up behind Pierre Gasly’s third-placed Alpine – after the Frenchman had maintained his starting spot ahead in the lap-one chaos. Gasly was keeping Russell lapping in the high 1m29s and low 1m30s, while the two leaders stretched away to be 12.3s clear at the end of lap 13 – thanks to their pace in the low 1m29s and high 1m28s for Norris.

Pirelli motorsport boss Mario Isola told Autosport post-race there was “not too much” tyre management going on at this stage, with “slightly less degradation than predicted” and the level of graining “quite low”. Unlike last week in Qatar, here it was all about keeping the rear tyres alive with minimal sliding and precise corner exits.

“The dirty air is painful – even at three seconds, two seconds [behind],” Norris explained. “To do that for a whole stint and stay that close is impressive [from Sainz].”

For that is what Sainz did – keeping to a maximum of 3.5s back from Norris for the race’s opening quarter. Only for the six laps leading up to the 21st tour did the gap between them stretch to above four seconds, as even with Sainz’s impressive efforts, the dirty air factor came to bear on the SF-24’s mediums.

On lap 25, with the gap actually back down to 3.8s as Norris’s pace crept back up the 1m29s, Ferrari acted – pulling Sainz in. The red-clad mechanics turned him around in 2.2s and then it was up to the Spaniard, with the undercut’s power here considerable in a thermal degradation race.

“I did a very fast out-lap to try and get within DRS or within range of trying to overtake Lando after the pitstop,” Sainz explained to Autosport’s enquiry about this critical phase. “Also, in case they had a half a second to a second slower pitstop that could put us within reach.”

McLaren had little choice in its response, with Norris called in to stop immediately next time by. Essentially, its “whole season was in the last pitstop”, reckoned team principal Andrea Stella. “We could’ve lost a position to Carlos and we could’ve lost the championship,” he added of the service where McLaren turned Norris around in 2.0s.

The race still hung in the balance as Norris powered out of the pit exit tunnel. Sainz’s searing in-lap/out-lap combination – mainly the former, where he gained 0.7s alone – had cut Norris’s lead to 2.1s and the Ferrari had the hards fired up and working. Norris had it all to do – including the fine balance of not overstressing the rubber or risk a late collapse.

McLaren's turnaround had Norris away with enough of a gap to Sainz that he wasn't within DRS range

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

“It's very difficult thing to judge with these tyres ,” said Sainz. “To use the first three laps to extract the peak of the tyre or to save that to the end of the race."

Ultimately, Sainz chose the latter – something Norris spotted rapidly on his second lap on the hards. “I knew he probably pushed a good amount out of the pitlane to try and get me,” the Briton explained. “I didn't have the finest in-lap. I started to struggle a lot with the tyres.

“And I saw already in Turn 2 and Turn 3 – a place you save the tyres – that he saved immediately, which gave me some comfort and allowed me to start saving at the same time. So, it's a difficult one because if he would have pushed too early, he would have completely gone off a cliff and maybe so would I.”

"We were more expecting to push Norris at the end of the race on degradation, but it didn’t happen" 
Fred Vasseur

With the leaders lapping now in the low 1m28s, the difference between them held at that near-two-second mark. Then, as Norris reached the 1m27s bracket and Sainz initially couldn’t go with him, the gap started to increase – hitting 3.2s by the end of lap 36.

“We were more expecting to push Norris at the end of the race on degradation,” explained Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur. “But it didn’t happen.”

Ferrari didn’t consider trying a two-stopper with Sainz thanks to the big gap the two leaders had by this stage as most of the teams had already “already committed [to a one-stop] before the start of the race”, per Isola. Indeed, each of the leading teams had only one set of useable mediums available, with two new hards reserved “as an emergency and also if the degradation was higher than expected”, again according to Isola. “If you stay close you don’t know what would happen also,” added Vasseur.

Each leader had moments of worry to the end. Norris was struggling with dirty air himself when lapping traffic as the season’s final 10 laps began. Sainz thought he’d picked up a second puncture in seven days in the Middle East after running over debris from Bottas’s second Turn 6 crash – this time a major smash with Magnussen that ultimately ended Bottas’s Sauber and likely F1 career.

Sainz gave valiant pursuit, but Norris was quicker on the hard tyres as they reached the closing stages

Photo by: Motorsport Images

“We saw nothing, it’s why we didn’t pit him,” Vasseur explained. “I think he went on some ‘pebbles’ in Turns 6, 7, after the crash of Magnussen, Bottas. A week after Qatar he was a bit stressed and under pressure with the puncture.”

McLaren asked Norris what he’d prefer in the event of a late safety car – “he considered some difficult options”, per Stella – regarding staying out on his aging hards or maybe taking new ones if the Ferrari inevitably did “the opposite to what we do” (Stella again) in such possible circumstances.

But it was a fear that didn’t play out. Norris eased clear to win by 5.8s – throttling back on the final lap, where Sainz was still “pushing like hell” for Ferrari. Having been a tiny 0.05s faster on the mediums in the laps post-VSC, Norris held a 0.184s lap time average advantage on the hards, bar his final tour completed easing off to savour the win.

“McLaren and Lando, with a hard tyre, they were just one or two tenths quicker,” Sainz concluded, with the McLaren’s increased downforce level on the rear wing package it introduced at Interlagos also a boon on tyre life preservation at tracks such as this.

“On the medium, I really strongly believed we had a chance. Little by little with the hard, it just seemed like it was getting tougher and tougher. And that's where I think the weakness of our car started to also appear and the strengths of the McLaren started to appear again. And it slipped away from us…”

How Leclerc rescued third

Amazingly, given he’d started 19th thanks to an engine battery-change penalty Vasseur said was needed due to the part “losing performance” as it was charged pre-FP1, and with his Q2 track limits exit, Charles Leclerc made it two Ferraris on the podium.

He’d gained 11 spots on the opening tour – blasting past slow-starting rivals off the line and at Turn 1, then swooping around Lewis Hamilton and Lance Stroll at Turns 4 and 5 like they weren’t there, before getting Liam Lawson, Bottas and Perez at Turn 6.

This is what heaped pressure on Norris’s stop for McLaren – as any issue would have meant the 14-point final margin swinging in Ferrari’s favour, with Leclerc suddenly on to score too and Piastri at this stage uncertain to do so.

Rapid start from Leclerc set up his race to finish on the podium, prompting concern from Norris

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

“Watching the TV screens I saw Charles was P8 after lap one, so I was a little bit nervous,” Norris joked of this sensational turnaround for the second Ferrari.

Post-VSC, Leclerc then tore by Magnussen, Fernando Alonso and Nico Hulkenberg before getting to just 1.1s behind Russell – undercutting the Mercedes with a stop six laps earlier, after which he passed Gasly with a DRS run into Turn 6 to gain the net third.

Rising to a real third when Hamilton finally stopped ahead, Leclerc completed a 38-stint on the hards, with his pace only starting to trail off compared to the leaders relatively late on. That was after he’d had initial doubts about such a long distance on the white-walled rubber.

Hamilton was the only driver starting on the hards, which meant an early safety car would have been disastrous, but the VSC came just too early to tempt anyone in

“My first lap recovered basically everything that we've had since the beginning of the weekend,” Leclerc said. “So, I don't have any regrets.”

How Hamilton deprived Russell of fourth

Leclerc finished 4.6s ahead of his soon-to-be new team-mate Hamilton, who also signed off on 2024 – and his 12 seasons at Mercedes – with a brilliant recovery drive.

After a combination of a Mercedes out-lap timing error and Magnussen knocking a downforce-obstructing bollard into his path late in Q1, he’d started 16th – camera crews and photographers packing his garage and pitbox ahead of the start.

Hamilton also made places with his launch and around the rest of lap one he gained in the incidents – although Verstappen was back ahead out of Turn 6. He’d been the only driver starting on the hards, which meant an early safety car would have been disastrous, but the VSC came just too early to tempt anyone in.

Hamilton bowed out of Mercedes with a superb drive on the alternate strategy, passing Russell on the final lap

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Having been 12th when this started and ended, Hamilton pursued and then passed Lawson before trailing Verstappen by almost four seconds as the world champion pitted, with the Mercedes inevitably running the race’s longest opening stint. Hamilton emerged from his final Mercedes pitstop in seventh, with a 17.7s-second gap to close to Russell ahead and with Hulkenberg and Gasly in between. He only just got back out on the mediums in front of old foe Alonso.

Russell’s Mercedes had emerged from its stop on lap 26 – 12 tours after Gasly had finally released Russell – still behind the Alpine but now in a net fifth. Russell then swiftly finally dispatched Gasly at Turn 9 and ran a net fourth, with Leclerc already three seconds to the good at this stage.

As Hamilton erased the gap to his team-mate by 0.77s each time over the 22 tours to the final lap, a warning was issued by team boss Toto Wolff to keep their final battle clean. Having closed in with DRS, Hamilton made his move with a bold around-the-outside swoop at the long, fast Turn 9 ‘hairpin’. Russell gave him enough space on the exit and Hamilton was through – celebrating on the grid with the podium finishers ahead.

“He was driving great,” Hamilton said of Russell. “Obviously, he started a lot further ahead so to catch up was tough. He was putting in good laps so it took perfection – I had to really put together the best laps that I could possibly do.

“I only caught him right on the last lap and was like, ‘It’s now or never’, so I just went for it.”

How Verstappen signed off with sixth

Having emerged from Turn 1 much better off than Piastri, Verstappen was handed his penalty shortly after the VSC ended. He ranted about “stupid idiots” in officiating offices, but later said he’d “apologised to Oscar” as “I wanted to try and get out of [the move]”.

Verstappen served his sanction at his lap-29 pitstop for hards, by which point he was a net sixth. He overhauled Stroll, Alonso, Hulkenberg and Gasly thereafter to recover this at the flag, finishing 12.3s behind Russell.

But, for all Red Bull’s effort in selecting a lower downforce rear-wing package to cure most of his practice understeer balance issues, the team ultimately reflected that it lacked McLaren’s winning pace last Sunday.

Verstappen had a low-key finish to his season after serving penalty for tagging Piastri

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

“After the qualifying, we were more optimistic,” said Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko. “But on the mediums, the speed was not as expected. On the hard, it was reasonable. But the speed was not on the level of McLaren.”

How Piastri kept at it to aid McLaren’s title

Piastri later had to serve his own penalty. This was for clattering into Franco Colapinto at Turn 6 as the VSC ended, which gave the Williams driver a puncture and “some damage” to his floor – although the cause of his later retirement was an engine issue.

The incident also left Piastri with two big flatspots on his starting mediums and he pitted for hards at the end of lap four – ensuring he’d need the emergency second set of that compound when he stopped again on the 32nd tour.

"Oscar never gave up and he came back to score a point that could’ve been very important – if not the points that could’ve been decisive in case of a swap between Carlos and Lando"
Andrea Stella

By this point he’d made it back to the points, then had to rise again from emerging 15th once he’d served his penalty. He carved by Stroll and Jack Doohan and – bar a wild off catching a sudden oversteer snap at Turn 11 as he chased Yuki Tsunoda on lap 45 – ultimately rose back to 10th, getting the RB and Alex Albon’s Williams too by the end.

McLaren insiders suggested, as they wore celebratory papaya T-shirts in the paddock post-race, that the atmosphere Stella had called “pretty cool, chill, calm, focused” ahead of Sunday, even with all the pressure of those title-less years, endured in its garage even after the Turn 1 clash with Verstappen.

“Oscar never gave up,” Stella concluded. “And he came back to score a point that could’ve been very important – if not the points that could’ve been decisive in case of a swap between Carlos and Lando.”

That wasn’t to be, either. McLaren’s constructors’ championship was sealed from the Yas Marina podium’s Monza-like top step – the team gracing such a spot again in Abu Dhabi for the first time since 2011.

Ferrari’s title wait goes ever on.

Piastri played his part in ending McLaren's wait for a constructors' title

Photo by: Colin McMaster / Motorsport Images